


From here to eternity

by LadyGloucester



Category: The White Queen (TV)
Genre: Battle of Bosworth Field, Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 09:13:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1682975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyGloucester/pseuds/LadyGloucester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She dodged every soldier laying on the ground, every limb, every banner tainted with the blood of its carrier. It seemed as hours were passing by, lazily dragging away from her, from their past together, from their love. A love that had scattered every day of their lives since that first day in Middleham.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From here to eternity

There was no one left around. The forest where the battle had developed was covered in mud, but it wasn't made of water. Blood was pooling here, and there, and her tiny feet tried to avoid them as much as she could. Her eyes had went blank when she knew of his fate, and yet, she was unable to leave him. She had to find him.

The victor army had taken away their corpses. The defeated one had been completely annihilated, there was no one left to take care of the dead. Only her. But she only cared for one.

She dodged every soldier laying on the ground, every limb, every banner tainted with the blood of its carrier. It seemed as hours were passing by, lazily dragging away from her, from their past together, from their love. A love that had scattered every day of their lives since that first day in Middleham.

But they took it away from them. They took him away from her. She knew it, while she was resting her hands over his head during the blessing. Her eyes closed saw what would happen. And she had braced herself for the outcome. He knew it too. He knew he was facing his fate, a fate long due since the crown sat on his head for the first time, a crown stolen from young, blonde curls into older, darker curls. A crown now laying on the mud.

When she found him, the vision tormented her eyes even deeper than the sight of her dead son. For children die, every day, since the man treads the land of the Lord. But fate had been cruel to him. He, who was in the prime of life. In the prime of his reign. He was not loved. People despised him, no longer remembering his bravery in the battlefield when he only counted eighteen summers in his old, wise eyes. No longer remembering how he protected them from the Scots. No longer remembering how he took away the grip of the bad queen, and his prince of ice. No longer remembering. Only abhorrence.

Her tiny, feather-like steps took her now empty soul up to his empty body. He had been despoiled of every ounce of metal and cloth, and his terrible, atrocious wounds lacerated his skin in the most obnoxious way. She dropped to her knees by his side, his deep blue eyes still open, fixed somewhere beyond life and heaven. Those eyes that had roamed her skin every night and faced every obstacle with honesty and finesse. Her hands flew to them, pulling his lax eyelids downwards to close them. If nothing else, at least he could have that peace. That dignity.

They tried to strip him of every bit of it. As if laying dead, naked in the middle of a battlefield trying to retain a crown he had earned through trial and tribulations, was something that could divest a man's soul by taking away his clothes and armor. She had come to fulfill her fate as well. She started to clean his body with a piece of black silk. 

First his hands. His hands, that had caressed her with a love she had never felt in her life. Hands that had held her through joy and tears, that had wiped away every single pain and trouble. Then, his arms. His arms, that had held her through joy and tears, that had embraced away every single pain and trouble.

His chest had been so wounded her tears started to roll down her cheeks. A chest that had sheltered her in the worst and had given her refuge whenever she felt the world falling apart around them. A chest that instilled love and care into hers. Into her heart, and into the very core of her soul.

His legs had ridden all over England. She remembered his horse, Galahad, that had drowned in the Channel the first time he had been forced into exile. She smiled faintly, knowing somewhere he would be riding again his childhood friend. 

And, at last, his face. That angled features that had captured gazes from every lady in court, and every girl in the country-side. Curls that had been tangled in her fingers so many times she had lost count. Lips that had kissed her in more ways that she ever imagined. 

His cleansed body looked now like an apparition, like a spirit of the forest, laying among the bluebells. She then took her dagger, and putting it against her braided hair, she cut it in a single thrust. She put her plait between his hands, now laying on top of his chest, resting as if he were just sleeping, dreaming of a life they would no longer share. He had loved her hair, and whenever he was anguished, he would find solace in her brown locks.

With a single movement, she stabbed her heart. 

 

It was no longer there.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I was feeling in the mood to write something a bit less mundane about Anne and Richard. And this is what turned out. Sorry if it's a bit depressing, but I seemed rather beautiful in its own sadness.


End file.
